4 Big Ten Players Make Wooden Award All-American List
Four Big Ten players made the 10-man Wooden Award All-American team that was announced by the Los Angeles Athletic Club on Wednesday night on ESPNU. Named to the team were Wisconsin's Johnny Davis, Illinois' Kofi Cockburn, Iowa's Keegan Murray and Purdue's Jaden Ivey.
Also honored were Ochai Agbaji of Kansas), Chet Holmgren of Gonzaga), Bennedict Mathurin of Arizona, Jabari Smith of Auburn, Drew Timme of Gonzaga and Oscar Tshiebwe of Kentucky.
Ivey, a 6-foot, 4-inch guard from South Bend, Ind., earned consensus second-team All-American honors after being voted to either the first or second team All-American squads by the four organizations that make up the All-America awards. He averaged 17.3 points a game, 4.9 rebounds and 3.1 assists per game while also adding 33 steals and 20 blocked shots. He is one of just two players nationally (Duke's Paolo Banchero) with 600 points, 175 rebounds, 100 assists, 30 steals and 20 blocked shots. He led the Boilermakers to a 29-8 record and a Sweet 16 appearance.
Illinois center Kofi Cockburn (21) shakes hands with Iowa forward Keegan Murray (15) after a game at Carver-Hawkeye Arena in Iowa City, Iowa. (Joseph Cress/USA TODAY Sports)
Murray led the Big Ten in scoring at 23.5 points per game and led the Hawkeyes to a Big Ten Tournament title. Cockburn was second in scoring at 20.9 points per game and Davis was third at 19.7 points per game.
Murray, who declared for the NBA Draft on Tuesday, totaled 822 points, 303 rebounds, 68 blocks, 66 3-point field goals, 52 assists, and 45 steals in his historic sophomore campaign. He is only the second player in Division I history to amass more than 800 points, 60 blocks, and 60 3-pointers in a single season (Texas’ Kevin Durant in 2007 was the first). Additionally, he is the first player with more than 800 points and 300 rebounds with a field goal percentage of 55 percent or better in a single season since North Carolina’s Antawn Jamison in 1998.
Cockburn has been honored by the Wooden Award group for the second straight year. He is the only player in the nation to average 20-plus points (20.9 ppg) and 10-plus rebounds (10.6 rpg) this season, and the only player to rank in the top 20 nationally in both scoring (11th) and rebounding (8th). He is the first Illini player in 50 years to average 20-plus points and 10-plus rebounds since Nick Weatherspoon did it in 1972.
Davis was voted the Big Ten's Player of the Year and was a consensus first-team All-American. He made a dramatic jump from his freshman year, where he averaged 7.0 points a game and made himself into one of the country's best players. He led the Badgers to a Big Ten regular season co-championship along with Illinois, doing so after being picked to finish 10th in the league in a preseason media poll.
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